GAME ON: NEW ADVENTURES AWAIT AT TRURO LIBRARY
Miniature wargames added to Heroes and Adventurers schedule at Truro library
A new adventure awaits at the Truro Public Library.
The Heroes and Adventurers group, known for their Tuesday night Dungeons and Dragons meets, recently rolled out a new program that focuses on a different type of role-playing game experience.
“The program focuses on miniature wargames,” said Jon Pederson, leader of the miniature wargames program for Heroes and Adventurers.
“The most common one is Warhammer, it’s the popular one everyone knows. It’s definitely a group involved activity. You need to have a group of people to really play and have a community around it.”
Miniature war games, such as the Warhammer series, focus on role-playing aspects similar to Dungeons and Dragons. Instead, it uses physical set pieces called miniatures.
The games are often played in a group on a large surface set up with 3D set pieces, creating a battlefield. Players battle each other with their own army of miniatures, and each playthrough is unique.
“It plays on a lot of the same principles and a lot of the same community that is involved in our Dungeons and Dragons program,” said Pederson.
“The game can be a bit daunting of course. We’re going to have a few tables with ready-to-go models so people can get a feeling for it. On a limited basis, we are also going to have a painting table where people can come in and learn how to paint the models as well.”
Pederson’s interest in the games grew when he was young.
“There was a store nearby where I lived and they would have a few tables set up inside, full of these beautifully painted mini-
atures,” he said.
“Guys would just battle back and forth with them and it was exciting. I never got into them though, because I didn’t have money and I wasn’t much of a painter.”
His interest in miniature war games returned after seeing a group battling a few years ago, leading him to get back into the hobby.
As games of this nature often involve a lot of personal investment and involvement due to the cost of models and the customization that goes into them, the program is only open to those 19 and over.
“We may change that going ahead, but for right now, the way
we look at it is the models themselves can be expensive, and you put a lot of time into them,” said Peterson. “It’s a time investment, a money investment, and we just didn’t want it to be a gathering where there were a bunch of kids around bumping tables and picking things up.”
The program is held in the Truro Public Library’s Maker Lab, which allows those participating plenty of space to paint their models and battle friends while also giving the group access to new, beneficial technologies.
“In there, they are giving us access to their 3D scanner and 3D printer,” said Pederson.
“It really opens up a world of possibilities. You can really print anything, such as dice rollers or new terrain for battlefields. It’s allows us to explore a whole other world as a hobby. Obviously, it’s not free to use, but it’s something we’ll have access to every Thursday.”